Survey: Teens Say They Are Using Facebook More

Not long ago, the conventional wisdom about Facebook was that the youngest users were using it less. A survey due to be released Tuesday suggests the opposite.

Forrester Research asked 4,517 teenagers about their social media use, and Facebook came out ahead–by a lot.

Nearly half of the respondents, who were all between the agest of 12 and 17, said they were using Facebook more than they were a year ago, the firm said.

Forrester’s researchers predict that increasing smartphone usage will help drive even more teenagers to use Facebook, whose mobile app is one of the most widely used in the world. “As today’s 12- and 13-year-olds grow into 16- and 17-year-olds, it’s likely their Facebook adoption will increase further,” the researchers said.

The research report, which was not commissioned by Facebook, was authored by Nate Elliott and Gina Fleming. Elliott has been critical of Facebook’s advertising product, calling its targeting capabilities sub-par.

But in Tuesday’s report, titled “Why the Sky Isn’t Falling on the World’s Favorite Social Network,” Elliott is bullish on the company’s future. “Since Facebook’s CFO admitted in 2013 that young teens were visiting the site slightly less frequently, most marketers have accepted as fact that teens are fleeing the site en masse. But that’s simply not true,” he wrote.

The survey contradicts several others, including one by the Pew Research Internet Project http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/ that showed teen interest in Facebook was falling off.

But Forrester’s new survey says Facebook’s adoption among the youth is vastly higher than every other social network except YouTube. And the percentage of youth who use it all the time–28%–is higher than any other service.

If teens were using Facebook less, it wouldn’t be surprising. A service that gets older inevitibly loses some of its early cachet. And there are hundreds of copycat services and mobile apps aiming for the teen audience.

On the other hand, Facebook is such a widely used tool that teenagers may face pressure to at least open accounts. Facebook hopes that as teenagers get older, they’ll use the service simply because it’s practical.

The Forrester survey compared teen use of Facebook with their use of other social networks, like Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. “Facebook users agreed that they use Facebook more than any other social site,” the report says.

Of the other social networks, Instagram was closest to Facebook in terms of heavy usage. Snapchat was third, followed by Twitter, Vine and WhatsApp.

Facebook owns Instagram and is in the process of acquiring WhatsApp. A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on the Forrester report.